The use of touch-sensitive surfaces as input devices for computers and other electronic computing devices has increased significantly in recent years. Exemplary touch-sensitive surfaces include touchpads and touch-screen displays. Such surfaces are widely used to navigate and manipulate content in user interfaces on a display.
Exemplary types of navigation and manipulation include scrolling, zooming, and adjusting the position and/or size of one or more user interface objects, as well as reordering user interface objects. Exemplary user interface objects include digital images, video, text, icons, control elements such as buttons, and other graphics. A user will, in some circumstances, need to navigate and manipulate content in a reader application (e.g., iBooks from Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif.), a file management program (e.g., Finder from Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif.), an image management application (e.g., Aperture, iPhoto, Photos from Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif.), a digital content (e.g., videos and music) management application (e.g., iTunes from Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif.), a drawing application, a presentation application (e.g., Keynote from Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif.), a word processing application (e.g., Pages from Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif.), or a spreadsheet application (e.g., Numbers from Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif.).
But existing methods for performing these navigations and manipulations are cumbersome and inefficient. In addition, these methods take longer than necessary, thereby wasting energy. This latter consideration is particularly important in battery-operated devices.